- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd; New edition edition (4 April 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099281864
- ISBN-13: 978-0099281863
- Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 11 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,145,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Evening Telegraph
‘A thundering 18th-century seagoing series’
Middlesborough Evening Gazette
a seafaring scribe with a wordsmith's gift to match the best... page turning stuff... strongly written.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
TO THE BITTER END is the third seafaring saga focusing on the adventures of ship's captain Matthew Loftus, now a seasoned 28 years old. He started out as an unhappy Whitby, Yorkshire, lad in the 1690s star-struck by the sea, by science, and especially by the uncertain field of ship's navigation whose flaws and inaccuracy doomed thousands of sailors to death (MATTHEW'S PRIZE). But Matthew, who prizes the science of sailing above all, has ironically been bowed not by the sea but by human greed and politics. The three novels are set during England's war of some 25 years' duration against Louis XIV that pitted the world's four great sea powers (Holland allied with Britain, and Spain with France) in a fight for domination of colonies and worldwide trade. TO THE BITTER END opens as Matthew, based now in Newfoundland, a mostly English colony, is achieving a second ambition, beginning to accrue some substance as a fur trader in the North Atlantic and local politician, who evenhandedly adjudicates disputes between the French and English colonists. (One Swiftian bone of contention: the English dry-cure cod for naval stores, the French brine-cure--the English method, having a far greater shelf-life, wins out.) But international politics, particularly in the form--well-known to readers of the other two novels--of venal Royal Navy admirals and their lackey landlubber politicians, whose lust for self-aggrandizement outweighs any positive character traits, send Matthew reeling to the brink of death and back. The political intrigues, and the author's evocation of the sea, whether calm or stormy, keep the story fast-paced. Add romance, Matthew's passion for navigation and piloting, and several thrilling, well-detailed sea battles and you have an exciting adventure of the 18th century that moves along at the clip of a well-trimmed New England-made bark.
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